The card from her coat pocket
by dianasdaughter
Summary: It had been a week since the card had fallen from her coat pocket - one week to figure out what I'd done wrong, and one week to make right. I just hoped I wasn't too late. AH One-shot.


Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight, no copyright infringement intended.

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><p>I slowly woke up in our king-sized bed with her beside me, yet I felt cold. What was merely a few feet between us had, over the years grown to feel like a chasm miles long, and it was largely in part my doing.<p>

Before rising at 6am as usual, I spent a few minutes looking over her form that was dwarfed in the huge bed, under luxury sheets and our eiderdown duvet. After eight years together, her beauty had only grown from the first day I saw her. Chocolate brown waves of hair spilled over her pillows, and a slight blush was present on her cheeks and upper chest, likely from the warmth of the bed covers. She was an angel.

It had been a week since the card had accidentally fallen from her coat pocket. A week since my world was tilted on its axis and abruptly righted so that, for the first time in three years, I saw myself, and her, and _us _clearly. I was scared shitless by what I found and I knew as soon as I saw the name on the card that I couldn't let her go through with this, providing she hadn't already called him.

It tore my heart out, and there was only one way to put it back together.

The buzzer on my alarm went off, and I quickly silenced it without waking her. While I was willing to change a lot of things to make this work, to make her believe in us again, I couldn't skip my morning workout. In the past week I had run faster, harder, further on that treadmill than I had in my life. Once I even ran for an hour, pretending it was a time machine. If I could run just a little bit faster, I could take back all the decisions I had made on our behalf, and redo them to create _our _life the way that we had both envisioned it. I stepped off the machine that day sweaty and sobbing, but resolved that I could only move forward, because there was no future without her in it.

Jacob was royally pissed off with me. I never told him the reason that I had resigned with just two weeks notice, but I didn't think he deserved an answer. While I could only blame myself for the decisions I had made, I couldn't help but feel he had a hand in all of this. Plus, I couldn't wait to get away from him so that I would never, ever had to see him eye fuck my wife ever again. If it took all my energy and my last breath, I would make sure they were never in the same room once I resigned.

Jacob's wife Gianna, of course wanted to throw a big going away party, and I think it was mostly because she wanted to get me drunk and try and have her way with me again. I am embarrassed to say that it almost worked last time. Bella doesn't know about that. My best friend Seth found me shit-faced and being led to the bathroom by that skank while my beautiful wife was outside having to deal with the advances of that asshole Jacob. I don't know what happened that night, but Bella refused to attend another party after that, and I made junior partner three days later. I never questioned either one of those events. I never questioned it when I was suddenly in need of a secretary, and rather than hiring one myself, Gianna was at the front desk Monday morning in something could only be called a business suit if it was in a porno featuring a naughty secretary.

I kept the blinds to my windows closed since that day, and refused to call her anything but Mrs. Black.

My morning workout helped me to figure out a plan to change the course of my future. I knew I needed to act quickly. She had been keeping his number in her coat pocket, as though she stuffed it in there without a second glance, but I had seen how the corner of the card had been bent and worn. Having known her for so long, I knew that when she put her hands in her coat pockets she tends to fiddle with the items that her fingers come across. If she throws her keys or a couple of coins in there, I can hear them tinkling as we ride the elevator together in the mornings. That meant that even if she hadn't taken the card out, she was still aware of its presence in her pocket.

My only hope is that she hadn't called him before I found it. I wasn't snooping, by the way. One evening after a particularly stressful day, she had laid her coat on the back of the couch and forgot it there. I picked it up to place it in the closet, and I had mistakenly grabbed the wrong end. I pulled the coat upwards and the card fell from her pocket.

It was the best mistake I've made in years.

To say that I was shocked by the name I saw there doesn't come close to the feelings that raged through my body. I felt shocked, enraged, betrayed, hurt, and most of all, I felt guilty. Guilty because I know her better than anyone else on earth, and I know she wouldn't have accepted the card if a part of her wasn't considering going through with it. I didn't know what to do in that moment, but I know I couldn't let that happen.

So, that very day I resigned. I knew that my job was a huge part of the problem, and the long hours combined with the type of work I did had created the rift between us. I hadn't set out to become the type of lawyer I was. In the beginning, our career goals were so similar it was as though fate saw to it that we would take on the world together. That's how I saw it anyway. After years of living on a shoestring, I became disillusioned with fighting for what's right. I wanted to give her more. I wanted to be the provider that I knew she deserved.

So I set goals and I met them in the best way I knew how. In our sixth floor penthouse suite, we had the most modern appliances and furniture. Our thermostat was set to seventy degrees at night, and warmed to seventy-three degrees half an hour before she got out of bed, and our curtains opened to reveal a gorgeous view of the city exactly 25 minutes after she rose for the day. Our home office was packed wall to wall with bookshelves, housing every book I thought she needed and wanted. In the parking garage, my silver Aston Martin was parked beside her royal blue Audi that I picked out for her on her 30th birthday.

And it was parked beside the used silver Volvo that she drove to work everyday.

It took me a day or two to remember the conversations we'd had over the years to determine how to fix the mess I had created. Thank god I have such a good memory.

She never wanted a penthouse suite. She said she would have been happy with a family home in the suburbs, with a backyard and a front porch.

She did love the kitchen, but she didn't hardly used the second oven, and our over-sized fridge looked sparse, even with a week's worth of groceries for two people. She often used the professional grade mixer I bought her, but rarely used the panini-press, the cappuccino maker, or the fondue set.

Her favourite and most well-used item was still the crock pot that she bought at a thrift store while we were still in college. She refused to buy a newer one, stating that her and this crock pot were like old friends.

Her favourite pieces of Jewelry were the charm bracelet I gave her on our one year anniversary, and a simple pair of gold earrings with small diamonds that I gave her on our wedding day. I was embarrassed that day in not being able to afford more, yet she has shown me time and again that she prefers them over the extravagant diamond and sapphire set that I gave her last Christmas.

So over the last week, I began to change things, starting with my job. I began to engage her in more conversation and I turned down a few breakfast and dinner meetings so I could be home with her more. Last Saturday, she heard me declining a meeting at the golf course, in which I informed the client that I had plans to spend the day with my wife.

She seemed pleased with the changes, but confused. She never mentioned them, and when I tried to bring them up she changed the subject. It was killing me to believe that it was too little, too late. But I had to believe we could see it through this, because without her I was nothing.

Not for one minute mind you, did I believe this was my entire fault. Why didn't she tell me it had gotten to this point? When I began to realize that the meals we shared together and the alone time we gave each other had diminished two one or two evenings a month, why didn't she say anything? If she had only told me, if we had just talked about this it could have been avoided. In truth, I was disappointed in her for feeling she couldn't come to me. But not as angry as I was at myself, because I had a feeling I had driven us to a point in which she couldn't open up to me anymore.

If you had told us six years ago that it would be like this, we would have both laughed in your face.

Finishing my work out, I put on my suit as usual and sat at the edge of our bed. Despite the distance that had come between us, this was one thing – perhaps the only thing that we had left in which I expressed my love to her each day.

Bella hated alarm clocks. I had seen her smash them, throw them across the room, and accidentally wreck the cord as she tried to yank it from the socket. It didn't seem to matter if it was a buzzer that woke her up, or a radio station, or a song, they all faced her wrath in the morning.

But not me.

I was the only person who could wake her up without fearing for her life. She even told me that in high school her dad had resorted to knocking loudly on her door and backing away quickly, so that he wouldn't be jarred by whatever item she had thrown on the other side. It was quite the idiosyncratic quirk of hers. Working with in the community center all day long, she had the patience of a saint. But wake her up to 94.7 KATL or any other form of noise and she was, for lack of a better term, a raging bitch.

But I could do it. I'd always been able to. Best of all, I loved doing it. While I thoroughly enjoyed making love to her, and our kisses were out of this world, there was something so intimate and special about waking her up gently from sleep.

With the carefulness that I possessed every morning, I sat on the edge of her bed and began stroking my fingers down her silky brown locks. She stirred slightly in her sleep, so I moved my hand to her forehead to move some of the strands that had fallen over her eyes. She wiggled a bit in bed, and her arms moved up out of the covers, and she mewled like a kitten as she stretched her arms above her head. So fucking adorable.

I slowly bent down and placed light kisses across her temple and cheek. She was warm, _so _warm. I wouldn't have minded kissing her lips, but I knew she was self-conscious of morning breath so I continued to kiss her forehead, chin and eyelids, before I skimmed her jaw line with my nose and placed my lips next to her ear.

God, she smelled so good. She smelled like shampoo and sleep with a dusting of perfume mixed with warm skin. I now had a full on raging boner, but I wouldn't act on it. Not only had our relationship slowly deteriorated in that area as well, but our wake up ritual was never about that. It was always about intimacy and affection, but not sex.

But if she only knew how much I wanted to…

"Wake up sleepy head," I crooned in her ear. She slowly opened her eyes, which were still puffy from sleep. She looked at me and smiled. It was just too fucking cute how she looked in the morning. Although her eyes were trained on me, her brain clearly had not yet caught up.

"Going to work already?" I smirked at her observation. I was waking her up the same time as usual, but she was still disoriented. Before I knew what I was doing I was giving her a quick closed mouth kiss on the lips. I couldn't pass up the little pout on her face.

"It's the same time as usual, love. Dinner tonight?" I kept my question casual, so that she wouldn't suspect anything. Today was the day I confronted her and changed everything, hopefully for the better.

"Mmmm, sounds good. It's Wednesday, so I'm working until 6:30pm. How does seven sound?" I didn't escape me that although she agreed to dinner, she was no longer looking at me. Over the past week, I had started to realize that she also interacted with me differently. I don't know when it started that she stopped looking at me in the eyes and lacing her fingers with mine, but if I had anything to say about it, she would be doing that again very soon.

"Seven sounds perfect. I gotta run. I Love you." It was my luck she was working late that night; it would give me an extra hour and a half to make sure everything was perfect.

"You too, see you tonight," she replied. I tried to control the fall of my face when I noticed that her response to my profession of love was less than earnest. Instead I reached for her hand and let my lips linger on her knuckles and was rewarded with a smile and a deepening of her blush.

There was hope yet.

I left as though I was going to work, but I had actually taken the day off to gather a few items that I would need. The first thing I did was pay a visit to my father-in-law, to request a few old items that Bella had stored at his house once we had moved into the penthouse. As I was leaving Forks, Charlie looked at me with a bemused expression and said, "It's about time son." Not knowing how much he knew, I simply nodded and thanked him for his time.

Returning home, I next went to a department store and made a few important purchases, which I was ensured would be delivered that afternoon. Next I went to the grocery store and picked out some food items that I was hoping would bring back some fond memories of where we started, and hopefully lead us to a future in which we were still together.

Finally, I waited at home for the delivery men so I could set up the necessary items.

With the food almost prepared and my purchases assembled, I set up the table, lit the candles and turned up my Ipod. It was 6:55pm, and I felt like it was all or nothing at this point.

At 7:03pm, I walked to the door to greet my love. She walked in looking tired, and a little worse for wear, but the smirk on her face when she saw me transformed her expression from worn out to amused.

She looked at me and tugged on the bottom hem of my shirt, "What's this about?" It thrilled me to see her eyes roam up my chest and shoulders. Among other things, I had found my old U-Dub shirt at Charlie's place. The fabric had thinned and there were holes in the collar, but this t-shirt was my standard uniform in college, and I remember how much Bella had loved it on me. Thankfully my physique was better than it was when we had first met.

I shrugged, "You always liked me in this shirt."

"Wasn't it at Charlie's?"

God, she it too observant for her own good. I hope I hadn't blown it by laying it on too thick. Turned my head down, looked up at her and shrugged one shoulder again, "I went and got a couple things there today, that I have been thinking of lately. I was rewarded with a small smile, although she still avoided me gaze.

"O-kaay…So, what's for dinner?" She sniffed, "Wait, is that? It isn't!" she moved past me, not noticing the bouquet I held in my hand. "It is!" she shouted, "I haven't had this in forever!"

I blushed and handed her the flowers that I had been clutching, "For you, my love."

The moment she saw them, tears welled up in her eyes, "Did you…really?"

She took the flowers from me and placed them in a vase that I had ready on the table. The assortment of wildflowers had luckily made it back from Forks, and were a reminder of the time when I had gone there to meet her dad for the first time. While I was there with her, we had taken a hike and come across a meadow filled with scented wildflowers. I picked a bouquet for her and wound them into a crown for her head. She then made me one for me, and we sat in the meadow for over two hours talking, touching, and then making love. That was the day I had told her I was in love with her. Several times since that trip I had picked wildflowers for her. It was my silent 'I love you' to her. I hadn't done it in more than a year, however. For the past few years I had purchased extravagant bouquets on valentines and her birthday. While she always accepted them with a smile, they were never given the reception that these were given now.

Cautiously, she gave me a hug and whispered, "I love them." Now if I could only get her to say, 'I love _you_' again. I couldn't recall the last time I had heard that phrase from her in its entirety.

Reluctantly breaking the embrace, I stepped back and pulled her chair out for her, and served her some of the food from the dish on the table. When I lit the candle, she burst out laughing. "You silly man! What's this?"

The single candle I had lit were none other than the number four, the kind one places on a birthday cake. The year we both turned twenty-four, we realized that after her birthday we wouldn't need the number four anymore for many years to come. Bella was in grad school and I was in law school, and money was tight. Every Friday we would have a candlelit dinner featuring our number four candle. It was a cheap, corny tradition, but it was ours, and I can only remember feeling loved during those times.

Bella smiled and gestured at the food on her plate while she reached for the ketchup. "This is…wow, Edward. This brings back memories." She looked down at her Kraft dinner and cut up hot dogs.

I shifted nervously, "Good, I hope?" I could tell she saw the vulnerability in my face, as her voice softened. Years ago when she was had a rough day at work, I would cook her this meal, her favourite comfort food.

"Yeah. I think that was the best time of our lives." I hoped that wasn't finality I heard in her voice. "What's this about though?" She picked up her fork and stabbed a few macaroni noodles.

Boldly, I reached across the table and took her hand. She seemed surprised, but didn't retract it from me. "I know…I know in the past few years that things have changed, that _we've_ changed, and perhaps not for the better. I want to get back to where we were, when we loved each other so fully that I never, ever doubted the way that you felt about me. I miss you. I love you. I want a long, full life with you and I will do anything to make it work."

Bella was silent for so long, I could almost hear my heart beginning to break. Was this it? Was what we had not enough, or was it too far in the past to reclaim? I lowered my head to rest in the palm of my free hand, anticipating rejection.

Bella must have noticed, because she squeezed my hand in hers, and I looked up. "I want that too," she said. I felt a weight lifted from me chest, but then she continued, "But what we had wasn't about Kraft dinner and birthday candles. It was about whom we were when we were together. Edward, I fell in love with you because you brought out the best in me. I still love you, but lately it seems that all you care about nurturing is your place in that law firm, keeping clients happy, making sure they had an enjoyable round of golf, impressing them with your car, your credit card, your choice of restaurant. That's not who I am, you know that. This is great, but how long will it take before we're put on the back burner again, because you have to cancel plans for a client, or to please a partner, or to complete a case?" She lowered her eyes to the table, "It's hard for me to say this, but I deserve better than that."

I felt tears stinging in my eyes. I agreed with everything she said, but it was so hard to hear it from her. It was painful to have her voice the way that I had mistreated our relationship to keep other people happy and make more money. "You do deserve better, love. And I want you to know that I can do better, I can _be _better for you. If there is anything I know in this life, it's that I love you more than I can express, but I plan on trying to show you for a very, very long time."

She began to speaking, but I continued, "I have spent the past week trying to figure out how this happened," I motioned to the air between us. "When we were in school, I remember laying bed dreaming of a time when I could give you everything your heart desired. I hated that you went to sleep with socks on, because we didn't dare turn up the heat. I hated that you served me fantastic meals on cracked plates and managed to cook amazing food in warped pots with broken handles. I hated that you took the bus and that we lived so far from campus because it was cheaper. I wanted to give you everything that you were lacking.

"So I went for the money. I dreamed of giving you everything you wanted, and I think I lost sight of what it was that we truly desired. Despite our long conversations of the future, I became completely enamored with the amount of money I could make in corporate law. After I completed my internship at Black and Uley, and I saw how they lived, and I saw how I could provide for you, it's like I became blinded by what they had and forgot about _us, _about what _we _wanted and that which we provided each other.

"I hate your job," She stated bluntly. "I love you, but I hate what you do for that place. Sometimes I look at you – or better yet, I read another note from you canceling dinner, movie night or whatever we have planned, and it's like I don't know you anymore." She choked on her words and I saw tears escape from the corners of her eyes, which caused me to release my own, "Every now and then, Edward, I see the man I fell in love with. I know he's still in there. But I have to say, it's been awful hard to find him the last couple of years." She sobbed once, and then picked up her paper napkin to dry her eyes.

I moved to her side and knelt to her level. "Look at me, Bella." She looked up, but still didn't meet my gaze, so I tilted her chin slightly, "Look at _me_. Not my shoulder, or my left ear, look in my eyes."

As her chocolate brown pools met my gaze, I was taken aback by the sadness there. _Please don't let this be good bye_ I chanted to myself, and I worked to take down my walls and put all the love I had for her in my eyes.

"It changes today. I'm still here, I'm still with you, and I still need you. I have made some bad choices with the best of intentions, and I wish….god you don't know how badly I wish I could go back and change them all. Because as much as I want to provide for you, and protect you, it's only because I am deeply and irrevocably in love you and it means nothing if you aren't by my side. I would turn down a whole corporate office full of clients for you to stay with me. I need you more than I need their money, or their approval, or partnership in any firm. You are It, Bella. Not just in love, but in life."

Bella clung tightly to my hands, as though they were a lifetime. "How…how can you change so quickly in a week? Its – we've been like this for years. I don't see how you can just up and change your entire career in a few days."

"I can because at the heart of my career, my goals are still the same. I didn't do this because I love corporate law. I thought I loved the money, and the cars and all the perks that come with it, but I realized that what I loved was giving you what I thought you needed. It just took a big wake up call for me to realize that you didn't ask for any of this, and that I had decided what you should have without asking you in the first place, or telling you my intentions. This was all for you, but if you aren't in this with me, there's no point. Any by the way, I really, really hate golf."

Bella gave a watery chuckle, and then sobered up, "I want to make this work, but I'm afraid you'll resent me if you change everything."

I shook my head forcefully, "Don't worry about that. Although I've been nervous, I can honestly say I have been more excited in the last week than I have been in years. Bella, I did something for us this week, and perhaps I should have asked you, but I didn't think that you would be too upset. It will mean making some changes, and as much as I think you'll be happy with them, I just hope I haven't royally screwed up." I suddenly became much less confident about this plan, and realized that I had, yet again made another decision without her. This was something I was going to need to work on.

She looked at me anxiously, "What did you do?"

I looked up at her, "I quit my job."

"WHAT!" She screamed. I became afraid that I had made everything worse, until I saw the blinding smile on her face. "But…but…I don't even know what to say to that."

"Just tell me you are happy."

"Oh god, Edward, I am happy….but what will you do? I mean, no matter where you work there will be pressure to move up, to retain clients, to work odd hours" She lowered her voice sadly, "You can change where you work, but this doesn't change _how_ you work."

I had thought about this. I knew if I jumped into another position at another firm, I would be confronted with the very same situations that drove us apart. I would still be working long hours around people who were focused on having more money and power. This wasn't who my Bella was, and this wasn't who I was.

"I know my love, so I got a job somewhere else…in three weeks I will be starting a position at a non-profit that provides legal advice for people who can't afford a lawyer, but don't qualify for legal aid." Bella's jaw dropped, but her eyes glistened with excitement, "I have to be honest, the pay is shit, but there are decent benefits, and the hours are more manageable. But the reason I am excited is that –"

"That is the reason you went into law in the first place." Bella quietly finished my sentence.

Tears slid down my cheeks from hearing just how well this woman knew me.

I nodded and smiled through said tears. Throughout college and then law school, whenever life got tough Bella and I would lay together in bed and remind each other about why we were doing what we were doing, even when it was hard. I would talk to her about how I wanted to help people in need, the ones who "fell through the cracks". I had a passion for social justice, and though it took me a while to figure out exactly how to act on it once I had decided on a law degree, I never looked back.

Bella, meanwhile, knew exactly what she wanted to do since before high school. When we had been dating for about six months, she confided that she had been physically abused by her mother. At some point a neighbor had put a call into family and children's services. A social worker, Irina, showed up at the door, and was able to quickly figure out the situation. Bella was able to move in with her dad, and the social worker bent over backwards to make sure that Bella and her dad when to counseling and received community support to address the changes in their home life. The social worker also talked to her dad about finding positive female role models for her, which is how she became closer with Sue, who he eventually married. Bella's social worker became her role model and later a mentor.

Somewhere between graduating law school and the present day, I lost sight of my passions. Bella always remained on track, but it bothered me that she never took the time to remind me.

"Why didn't you ever tell me, Bella?"

"Tell you what?"

"Why didn't you ever point out how off track I was?"

Bella, looked down, and appeared shy, "I thought you were happy like this."

"Like what?"

"Like…with a life filled with other things. I only wanted you to be happy, even if that meant that I couldn't be with you anymore." She rasped the last four words softly, and my heart clenched at how this could have gone had I not found the card.

I pulled her up from her seat. "Dance with me?" I asked. She let me lead her to the living room where I had pushed the couches back.

I already had the perfect song queued up on my Ipod, one in which I knew the significance wouldn't be lost on her.

I took her in my arms and when her eyes –finally – met mine of her own volition, I slowly and carefully said my next few words, hoping she could see how much I meant them.

"Bella, there is no happiness for me, without you."

As the open chords of the song began, I held her gaze as her eyes began to fill with tears and her grip tightened around my neck. I bent my head low and whispered every feeling and thought of love that I had in the moment:

_You make my life complete._

_You matter to me._

_You make me happy._

_My life is wonderful because of you._

_You reminded me of what I really want in life._

_You are the most beautiful creature in the world, the only one I ever wanted._

I first saw Bella in the school library, where she had a part-time job. She was absolutely beautiful. Even under fluorescent lights, there was a glow about her that was indescribable and I knew we were meant to be together. After seeing her for the first time, I quickly became a "frequent flyer" at the library. I knew I wasn't the only one who had noticed Bella, and while I wanted to keep others away from her, I was painfully shy and I was deathly afraid of facing rejection if I asked her out.

After about two weeks, Bella became suspicious of my habits and began to ask detailed questions about the full-length novels that I was borrowing from the library and returning the next day. At first I tried to tell her I was only using them as reference, but I was beyond mortified when it became clear that I wasn't taking out material due to my love of reading. Luckily, Bella had the guts to ask me out to coffee.

At the time, I worked in a coffee shop and there happened to be a day in which I was working until 9pm. Her shift at the library ended at the same time, so after work she headed over and we sat in my coffee shop and ended up talking for hours.

The coffee shop closed at midnight, and I had agreed with my co-worker that I would lock up. After I closed down and dimmed the lights, I turned on this song and danced with Bella in the middle of the Java Java Pub. I told her that it expressed exactly how I felt – and still feel – about her, and she revealed to me some time later that she felt the same way.

And so it became our wedding song.

As the song progressed to the chorus, I gently sang to her,

_So tonight I'll ask the stars above_

_How did I ever win your love?_

_What did I do?_

_What did I say?_

_To turn your angel eyes my way?_

Bella held onto me tightly, as though she might lose me if she let go. As the song ended, we remained in the middle of the living room clinging to each other tightly and swaying back and forth.

"Don't leave me, please." My voice cracked as begged her.

"You must have found the card." My heart began to crack as she confirmed my deepest fears.

"I wouldn't have done it without talking to you first." She ensured me. It wasn't enough for me though. I didn't want her to ever think of it again, and I told her so.

"I'll never give you up without fighting for you. There is no me without you." She nodded and buried her face in my shoulder. Her frame shook and my shirt became wet with her silent sobs.

She finally calmed down and turned her cheek to my chest so she faced away from me. "I got Jenks' card from Rosalie."

_What?_

"What?" Now I was angry. Where did she get off interfering with us?

"She didn't tell me to call," Bella placated. "She said she could see I was unhappy. She just wanted to give me options."

"So she hands you the card for the best fucking divorce lawyer in the city? Hasn't she ever heard of therapy?"

Bella looked up at me sheepishly, "I actually did look into that. I didn't think you'd go for it."

"Love, I would walk through fire for you. If I had any inkling you were thinking…" I had to stop and breathe as my voice wavered. "If I had any idea you wanted to leave me I would…well, I _did _change everything. I would do anything for you, and I would never regret it."

"Maybe it's not a bad thing that you found the card."

I scoffed, "You could have told me what you were feeling. That might have helped." She nodded and looked my eyes with such sadness. I then saw it flicker across her face, and I knew. I knew that she realized how hard it was for her to tell me how she was feeling. She realized in that moment that not telling me what she was thinking had also led us to this place.

"I think we should still do it." My chest closed up at her words and my heart started to pound in my ears.

"W-What? NO! No. Absolutely not. I'm not letting you leave me. We –"

She placed her fingers on my lips. "No. Sorry. That came out badly. Therapy. I think we need someone to help us work through this."

My whole body relaxed, and Bella began running her hands up and down my arms to console me. Jesus it felt good. It had been months since she had done that simple action to calm me down. I'd always loved it.

"Therapy. I can do that. I want to be better for you." I reasoned.

"And I you."

And for the first time in months, Bella pulled on my neck and pressed her lips to mine and brushed her tongue against my bottom lip. Sure, we'd had sex once in a while, but it was always me who approached her. And she always gave me a quick peck on the lips before work, but nothing like this. This kiss was important. As her mouth moved on mine it told me all sorts of things that I knew she couldn't voice but wanted me to know.

_I want you_

_I believe in us_

_I need to be close to you_

_We can make this better._

Deepening the kissing, I slid my hands from her back and cupped her backside, so that her stomach was firmly pressed against my growing erection. I hardened up even more when her fingers laced into my hair and massaged my scalp. It had been too long since it had felt like this, since it had been two people wanting the same thing, rather than one person requesting and another person acquiescing to the other's desires.

I lifted her up, her legs wound around my hips and I groaned as her center rubbed firmly across my shaft. I could feel her heat from her core as well as the tightening of her nipples from underneath her silk blouse. Her lips moved from mine to my jaw, ear and neck as I moved us quickly as I was able to our bedroom, turning on the accent lighting and laying her on the bed.

As soon as I did that, she stiffened up immediately and her lips moved away from my neck. She quickly sat up and looked at me incredulously. "What is this?"

I looked at her sheepishly, "You're too far away from me in that big bed. I missed the days when we would snuggle up together."

She turned back at me with a snarky grin on her face, "What are you going to do next, turn our heat off?"

I shrugged, "If it means you'll cuddle with me…"

"Come here you silly man. All you need to do is ask." She pulled me against her and looked down at the new double bed that had been delivered, which I had covered with her grandmother's quilts that had been stored at Charlie's, "But I do love it," she smiled, tracing the quilt patterns with her fingers, thanking me quietly. Another remnant of our college days, we spent many a Saturday wrapped up in these very same quilts making love and pondering if this was what granny had envisioned her sweet granddaughter doing beneath the cotton patchwork.

"It's my pleasure, love." I knelt in front of her and slowly began to loosen the buttons of her blouse. I slipped it off her shoulders, taking in the sight of her creamy white skin like it was the first time I had seen it. I could never get over how soft her skin was, even though it was almost a decade that we had been together.

I helped her remove her pants, and her bra, and she lay down on the bed in nothing but a pair of black lace panties. Kissing her lips, her breasts, I paid special attention to her nipples, sucking and nipping at them in the way that I knew drove her wild. _Only _I _know how to do this to her._

Licking up her collarbone, I felt Bella's tiny hands pulling on my shirt in a frenzy. As much as I wanted to help her, to speed things up, I needed to feel her do it. I needed to feel her want me as much as I wanted her. As she continued to remove my clothing her hands shook less and I laid down between her legs, only a thin pair of panties and my boxers separating us.

My cock was aching to take her, but I knew we needed it slow this time. Too many times had been perfunctory, a rote confirmation of our wedding vows, even though we never tried to conceive. We had discussed children on and off in the past few years, but as my career had grown that discussion had been lost among all our other conversations and acts of love. Now, with her under me, all I could imagine was planting my seed deep within her, and watching as our love blossomed into a child. We weren't ready for a baby – not by a long-shot – but my hopes soared as that idea took hold in my heart once more.

"I want it all with you Bella, everything." I didn't want to bring up children, but I had to tell her something.

"Me too baby, I love you so much." Her lips crashed into mine, and I reveled in hearing that proclamation again.

I shifted my weight to lie beside her, and I slid one finger and then another inside. _So tight._ I could hardly wait to be buried in her heat, pumping into her, making her come. I wanted to make everything right for Bella, including the way I worship her body like the shrine that it was.

Feeling her tense up, I moved by body lower and placed my mouth over her clit. Why had I stopped doing this? Had long hours at the office convinced me that I didn't have enough in me to please my wife? Her thighs trembled around me and she lets out a long slow moan that went straight to my cock. Before long, she was panting, and then writhing beneath me until she finally screamed my name.

"Oh…god…ohgod…fuck...Edward!"

As she came down from her orgasm, I calmed her with long licks from her slit to her clit, lapping up her juices and feelings her pulse over my fingers and tongue.

I rose to my knees to enjoy how her face and body looked after the orgasm. Her hair was twisted over the pillows and her skin was flushed and damp. Her chest was heaving quickly and her eyes were closed as a goofy grin had settled on her face.

I was about to position myself between her legs, when she rose up and pushed me by my shoulders. _Yes!_ I cheered to myself. This woman knew what I like as much as I did her. Lying down, she settled over my cock and slid it inside of her.

Resting all of her weight on me allowed me to sheath myself in her as far as possible. We both let out a groan and stilled and she adjusted to my size and I collected myself so as not to immediately come inside of her.

Ghosting my hands over her breasts, she rolled her hips and began to move. Moving up and down and rolling, I sat up and licked her nipples, and I was rewarded with a deep cry from Bella. Tossing her head, she leaned back and grabbed my thighs, pointing her tits into the air.

I'd been exclusive with Bella for eight years, and this was certainly the best sex I'd ever had with her or anyone else. I felt her clenching around me cock, and I knew that I wouldn't last much longer. As she came down again onto me, I rolled my hips, hitting that perfect spot deep within her. As much as I loved her clit, it was such a turn on to know that my cock was making her come. She started to shudder and I propped myself up on my elbows to watch myself entering her over and over. I then felt her stiffen and she cried out once again, and that was my undoing. I pulsed deep within her, groaning her name as the world blacked out and I saw nothing but stars.

When I came back to my senses, Bella was laying on top of me limply, her breathing just returning to normal. Her head was tucked into my neck, and as I ran my hand up her back I kissed her shoulder and turned us to the side.

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Edward. Always." Her words were muffled in my neck. "You can get rid of the card from Jenks."

"I plan on burning it. Please don't ever think of doing that again. We can work this out. You mean the world to me."

"I won't, and I know."

After sometime, I broke out peaceful silence. "With this new job, we'll have to move. We can't afford this place with my new salary."

"Good." She answered, and nuzzled deeper into the dip of my shoulder, just where she belonged.

And as I drifted off, I knew that in time, everything would be OK.

* * *

><p>The song referenced was "Angel Eyes" by the Jeff Healey Band.<p> 


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